The EP Summary Plot Browser (Version 3.0)
The EP Summary Plot Browser is a convenient on-line utility for browsing
summary plots. It makes use of a number of web technologies inclusing: Dynamic
HTML (DHTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), JavaScript, Java, and (on Netscape
only) LiveConnect.
When a plot has been displayed, the user can drag the mouse back and forth
across the plot to make a vertical line appear. At the same time, the Time and
various other parameters are displayed to the right of the plot. The user can
also click on the "Zoom On" "link" to force a 2x zoomed-in
window to follow the cursor.
Java Locator Applet (not fully operational yet)
To obtain a dynamic and interactive view of the satellite locations, click on
the "Display Locations" "link" to the right of the plot.
This will bring up a Java applet showing the satellite locations together with
the magnetopause location, the injection boundaries and a variety of other
useful information. The window will disappear whenever you leave the page (or
resize or reload). The image below shows what this applet looks like when its
running. Dragging the mouse across the plot will change the information in this
applet dynamically. Why doesnt it work fully yet? Well, the simple version is
written in Java code that most browsers can understand. But, unfortunately that
version of Java is pretty much obsolete these days. The full version App is
written in the latest version of Java (which includes the Swing libraries and a
different event handling model etc.). The problem is that the newest version of
Java is not compatible with current browsers without a plug-in. If you want to
play with the new version, get the "Java Plug-in". A further problem with this
plug-in is that LiveConnect doesnt work properly -- so the App wont update by
dragging the mouse across the plot! (The current state of affairs in www
browser standards is truely hellish.) However, Netscape 6 (which is now out in
a limited pre-release version -- its not even beta yet) promises to solve all
of these problems and more (e.g. Latest Java support and TRUE w3c standards
compliance). So I think we'll have to wait until Netscape 6 is out before these
things work properly (should be in next month or so).
Auto-Links to Other Data Sets
Another important feature of the summary plot browser, are the "automatic
links" to other datasets. The various links shown to the right of the plot
are automatically set up so that they access the proper date in the remote
dataset. For example, if you are looking at the EP plot for January 10, 1997
and you click on the "MPA" link, you will be sent directly to the
correct date in the MPA plot browser.
Linking into the EP Summary Plot Browser
If you would like to link this plot browser into another browser, you can
bypass the FORM and access a page in the browser directly via an explicit URL.
For example, to bring up the Dec 31, 1995 page, use a URL construction like;
http://leadbelly.lanl.gov/lanl_ep_data/cgi-bin/ep_plot_choose_3.cgi/19951231/loe/3
The first entry after the ".cgi/" is the date in yyyymmdd or yyyyddd
or yymmdd or yyddd format. The next entry is the plot type (currently choose
from: loe, lop, loe+lop), and the third entry is the plot size (1, 2, or 3). A
plot size of 3 is small while 2 is twice as big and 1 is three time as big.
[TSPA] Reviewed by S-7: August, 2004
Page Last Modified: Wednesday, 18-Aug-2004 15:19:06 MDT
